Everything In Between
by MadiBuzz
Summary: Phil comes home upset after breaking up with his girlfriend for a particularly heartbreaking reason, and Dan turns out to be better at comforting him than either of them expected. But, of course, it doesn't stop there. They have a lengthy conversation about life, love, and well, everything in between. Rated T for language.
1. Chapter 1

First Phanfic. Long story short, Phil comes home upset after breaking up with his girlfriend for a particularly heartbreaking reason, and Dan turns out to be better at comforting him than either of them expected. But, of course, it doesn't stop there. They have a lengthy conversation about life, love, and well, everything in between.  
The first of two or three parts.

**Warnings:** None, unless Phil being sad is emotionally disturbing to you.  
**Pairing:** Dan/Phil (eventually. patience, grasshopper.)

This is a fairly simplistic fic. I don't see many stories with a lot of dialogue between Dan & Phil and I wanted to explore that part of their relationship. Hopefully you enjoy my interpretation of their conversations. ^_^

Phil slammed the door behind him as he entered the apartment, the corresponding sound startling Dan out of his video game-induced haze. "Aaah! Jesus, Phil."

"Sorry," Came the small reply. "Bit of a rough night, honestly."

Dan paused Guild Wars, half-turning himself around and craning his neck to look at his roommate. He reminded himself that Phil was not a door-slamming type of person, which of course then led him to wonder what the cause of the door slamming actually was, and whether or not it had any correlation with Phil's weary tone. Worried now, Dan could let his annoyance evaporate.

He still frowned, though, mostly out of concern, mixed with confusion. "Weren't you just going to see a film with Heather or something?"

"That was my plan, yes." Phil rubbed his eyes with one hand; an indicator of stress if there ever was one, and when he pulled it away they were visibly red. He began a slow, vaguely zombie-esque walk to the couch, eyes now downcast.

"Soooo… What happened?" Dan pondered aloud, this time in a gentler tone.

"Well, we started off pretty well. Everything was normal, we were laughing at the adverts beforehand and then came the start to the film and things were still nice. Then partway through, I looked over and she was texting her-"  
He broke off into a sigh. "-other boyfriend."

Phil's knees gave out and he collapsed onto the couch, not a foot away from his best friend, whose expression had switched from concerned to what one can only refer to as _absolutely pissed._

"That slut," Dan muttered, more to himself than Phil, who winced at his choice of words. Noticing this, Dan backtracked.

"… Sorry, mate. I know you cared about her."

Phil exhaled again, shoulders heaving visibly. "Yeah. I kind of hoped she cared about me too. Not enough though, I guess. Why don't they ever care?"

"Because they're mentally deficient?" Dan said. That earned him a chuckle. "Anyways, it's her loss," He continued, and after a beat of silence added, "I care about you."

Phil scooted himself closer to Dan, close enough to lean his back against Dan's chest. "You're my best friend, silly. Of course you do. Just not like that."

Dan bit his lip to hold back a smile. _You really have no idea…_

**Thanks for reading. ^_^  
Till next time,  
- Madi**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: Part two! Huzzah! If you're expecting Phan to happen by the end of this chapter I have some bad news for you. I just usually make pairings happens really quickly in fics and I'm trying to get away from that. I'm writing about real people, after all. If the events aren't going to be real the build-up towards them can at least be. I'm focusing on trying to characterize Dan & Phil as accurately as possible. How did I do?**

Phil shifted himself down to put his head on Dan's lap. He looked tired. It was quiet again for a few seconds before Dan asked, "You going to be alright?"

Phil's piercing blue eyes met Dan's brown ones. The only sound was their breathing almost synchronized in the silence, and Phil was suddenly a bit too aware of how hard it was to lie to him. "Yeah. Still a bit drained, though. Why does this always happen to me?"

"Ahh, the question that all bitter, recently single people ask that no one really has an answer to. The worst things happen to the best people?"

"That sounds rather silly, don't you think?"

"Ask a cliché question, get a cliche answer. Besides, it's either that or you just have terrible taste in women so-"

"Hey!" Phil used a slightly angry tone, but his tongue was sticking out of the corner of his mouth in a half-smile. "Thanks a lot, Dan, that really makes me feel better about-"

"Or maybe the universe has some sort of grudge against you and it has decided to punish you by condemning you to a life of loneliness and-"

"Dan!" This time Phil sat up to glare directly at him. The latter was suppressing giggles, with his signature smirk in place. "Just wanted to make sure we cover all your options."

Phil rolled his eyes noticeably. "Surely there's got to be more than two options!"

"Well yeah, I guess. Your point?" Dan crossed his arms involuntarily, eyes drifting casually around the room in thought.

"What are the other options, oh relationship wizard of destiny? Enlighten me." A couple of random hand gestures made their way into Phil's sentence before he dropped them at the end. Classic for Phil, of course. Dan stroked his imaginary beard and let his wandering eyes make their way to the ceiling before he spoke again.

"Let's see here. First path, as I said, universe hates you, and thus you are doomed to fail at all relationships until the end of time."

"Yeah. Next one, please."

"Umm. Second choice; you pick all the wrong people and you eventually get tired of it and settle down with someone rich or funny, or tolerable enough for you to bother faking an orgasm for. No kids or anything."

Phil shifted uncomfortably on the couch, leaning into a half-slouch. "And the next one...?"

"Well I'm kind of making these up as I go along but if you insist..."

"I definitely insist." He smirked, biting the outer edge of his lip.

" Right then. Third, and this is the most common prophecy of them all- you fall for someone in a radical way, the kind of love that keeps you up at night, but the supposed magic wears away and suddenly you're waiting for your second offspring to graduate high school so that you can divorce the hell out of each other."

"Ugh!" Dan looked over to see an exasperated Phil groaning. "Are any of these prophecy things any good?"

"Patience, Philip, I'm getting there. Now, that said, do you want to guess the final prophecy?" Dan looked far too cheerful about the conversation for Phil's taste.

"Not particularly, but I'll give it a go. Happily ever after?"

"Precisely! This one is basically the storyline of every fairytale known to mankind, but hear me out: you fall on love with the last person you would expect to, or even want to, and then you're dating and wow you're already up to the tenth cliche in the book and you tell them things about yourself that you wouldn't bother to with anyone else because you figured it didn't matter how many sugars you liked in your coffee before that date and BOOM! Throw in a slew of rom-com type moments and the occasional fight and there's your love story."

As if Phil wasn't already grasping for comprehension of this statement, Dan continued. Phil shifted himself to lean into Dan again, noting mentally that Dan was pleasantly warm. Good thing Dan was talking so quickly; otherwise his voice might have caught in his throat when Phil changed positions.

" Not actual fights, though. The ones that don't cause any damage because they always end in either teary, stumbling apologies and cuddling or an unusually aggressive make out session. Think, like, that montage at the beginning of 'Up'. Except without the despair and untimely death and such."

Dan exhaled. "And maybe a bit more pornographic. But I think that pretty much covers everything."

**Again I ask you, if you enjoyed it or thought there was something I could have done better, please take a minute to let me know!** **(In particular I'm looking for opinions on my characterization of Dan & Phil. I think I'm doing alright so far, but what do YOU think? Etc etc.) Thanks for reading!**  
**Expect another chapter sometime in the following week. :)**  
**Have a nice day.**  
**Til next time,**  
**- Madi **


	3. Chapter 3

**Longest chapter so far! Yaaaay! *throws confetti* I hope you guys like it. Leave a review if you do!**

Phil's expression was what could only be described as the awkward meeting of confused and impressed. "... Wow."

Dan gave the tv remote an absentminded kick. "Yeah. I may or may not have too much time on my hands."

"No, I meant wow as in 'wow, you've put an awful lot of thought into this'."

A smile tugged at the corners of Dan's lips. "I try, although I make no guarantees that anything I say can be held as valuable or or helpful in real-life circumstances. Disclaimer disclaimer and all that crud."

Phil shook his head, and spoke with a playfulness that one would usually associate with flirting. Which he couldn't have been. Right?

"Whatever you say, Daniel."

Shuddering, Dan retorted "Don't call me that, Philip,".

"That's not fair." Phil protested, jutting his bottom lip forward into a pout.

"All is fair in love and war," Dan's signature smirk returned. Phil threw a Gengar at him, which served little purpose but to make Dan giggle like a schoolgirl.

Straightening up, (he had leaned away when the toy was thrown) Dan fixed his hair and looked Phil directly in the eye. "Happy?"

"I suppose so..." Phil trailed off, voice sounding a lot more unsure than it had just a few seconds before. Not because of anything Dan had said or of every living human being on earth, there was no one he would rather be throwing stuffed Pokémon toys at on a Thursday night. It wasn't his 'right now' that was the problem. It was the argument he'd had an hour ago, or maybe not, maybe the words hadn't changed anything.

Her tone of voice, perhaps?

No, the slow, gentle tone just numbed him to an uncomfortable state, like an ice pack you left on a bruise just a few seconds too long.

The look on her face was probably the worst part, actually; no redness to show frustration or streaming tears of guilt, just confusion, characterized by rapid blinking and a slightly open jaw. Eyes glassy as they stared into space.

It was as if they could just stroll back into the theater and pretend it never happened. As if her nonchalant "I'm sorry?" and shrugging shoulders would stop the twisting sensation in Phil's gut. Almost as if she had done _nothing wrong.  
_Which, of course, made it that much more painful.  
The twisting sensation from earlier returned.

"Phil?" Something registered in Phil's brain. Movement close to his face, and a sharp sound at about the same distance. Dan, snapping his fingers, repeating his friend's name. "Phil?"

"AAAAHHH!"

"AAAHHHH!"

"WHY ARE WE YELLING!?"

"YOU STARTED IT!"

Phil blinked. "... I did?"

Dan's hand made a comically loud smacking sound as it hit his forehead. "Yes."

"Oh. How so?"

"You really have no recollection of the past thirty seconds?"

"I was preoccupied. Kinda lost in thought." Phil admitted, absentmindedly relaxing further into the couch.

"Ahh, I see." Dan grinned harder, his dimples getting more defined as his smile widened. "Unfamiliar territory, eh?"

Phil felt an urge to get up and grab the Gengar again. "Since when did you become a Canadian?"

"Since when did you become a racist?"

"Since when is Canadian a race?"

Dan lowered his head in shame. "... Touché..."

"Indeed."

"Okay, now that you're done making me feel like a brainless turnip-"

"-That wasn't my doing."

"It most definitely was; more importantly though, I was about to ask what you were thinking about."

Nose scrunching up, Phil's head shook responsively. "Not important."

"Really? People don't just stare at nothingness for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I'm guessing it was important and you're lying; either that or you just set eyes on a particularly arousing patch of carpet."

"Dan, it's stupid. I would feel really odd having to explain it to you."

Dan's eyes immediately traveled up to the ceiling again. "Well, I will continue to bother you until the end of time if you don't tell me now. Plus, no offense, but you're mildly terribly at lying anyways."

_Only to you, _ Phil thought to himself, but instead said, "Well, fudgeballs..."

He took a deep breath and glanced at a suddenly-attentive Dan, whose brown eyes were far too open to be ignored. He returned his gaze to that particularly arousing patch of carpet (as Dan had called it) in hopes of continuing with semi-coherent speech.

"See, I know how odd and dumb this may sound, but sometimes I DO actually get worried that the universe hates me or fate is working against me or maybe I just have really crappy luck. But that doesn't really scare me. The ending is the scary part. The final result. The being-alone-with-fourty-two-cats or whatever. I mean, dating is so much fun! But I want to settle down just as much as the next guy. And I'm nearly twenty-six and haven't got a hold on anyone yet and I don't think I ever will which is scary and I mean, if I can't have a good ending to my relationships I should get a good ending to my life but dying alone doesn't sound fun to me-"

Dan held up a hand to interject. "Whoa, whoa, whoa Phil. Calm your tits for a second and listen to me. Why the hell would you die alone?"

"... I'm not certain, come to think of it. I guess I just think too much some days."

"Either way, Phil, you're a perfectly worthwhile person. You're not a likely candidate to die alone." Dan smiled at him for added reassurance, and Phil tried to smile back, but there was something flimsy in it. Dan paused and lightened his tone to a more jokey voice.

"Although if you did, instead of telling everyone at your funeral how wonderful you were, I could go into great detail about your extraordinary fortune-telling abilities."

"Ha ha, hilarious, Daniel."

"What? You're smiling, aren't you?"

"Clearly my face has a mind of its own."

"Yes. It's called your brain."

Phil finally gave in, releasing a chuckle, small but genuine. "How do you do that?"

"What?"

"Distracting me from my own thoughts. It's weird, really."

"You're not particularly hard to distract, in case you never realized."

Phil's smile remained, and he turned to gently elbow Dan. "Well, lucky me, then."

**I realize how annoying I am about this, but please let me know what you thought of this chapter! Whether you do that by leaving a review, favoriting or adding this to your alerts is up to you, but I would really appreciate any one of those. Even if you absolutely hated it, (which I hope you didn't but hey! literature is subjective) tell me why! I would love to hear from you. It only takes a minute :)  
****  
Thank you all so much for reading.  
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Til next time,  
- Madi**

P.S- New chapter next week!


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note: Wow, long time no update! Sorry guys, if any of you happen to still be interested in this story. I wanted to continue it a while ago but I didn't even have internet. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Or if you don't, tell me why. I love getting feedback. :) Don't forget to favorite and/or subscribe! **

A brief, somewhat awkward silence ensued, but Dan soon spoke, plowing through the potential tension. "So. Uhhhh... Want to watch a film?"

Phil nodded. "That'd be great. Got anything in mind or...? I mean, I'd rather not see any lovey ones at the moment, cause, well-" He broke off abruptly. "Y'know."

Dan gave a half smile out of sympathy, and as if it required some great effort, pushed himself off the couch with both arms. "Yeah, no, of course. I'm in the mood for an action-y thing anyways."

With that he walked over to the DVD shelf, flipping through the boxes with a sense of urgency that Phil didn't quite understand. He couldn't place a reason for Dan to be that way.

Dan couldn't really understand why either. Normally when people were sad around him, he would just pat their shoulder or try to comfort them, which ultimately always made the situation worse.

But something about the look on Phil's face earlier; it was not so much a facial expression as it was a mask of hurt. It was the kind of pain that would linger in a room for a while, like cigarette smoke in a closed space: drifting aimlessly around, thickening the air, subtly pissing everyone off.

In short, simple terms, Phil was upset and Dan couldn't have it anymore.

"How about..." He said as his eyes scanned the boxes, then pulled one out and spun around, holding it up for Phil's approval. "... The Avengers?" He smiled in a way that looked to be somewhere between forced and genuine. More than anything else, hopeful, like a kid tugging on their mom's sleeve, begging for something they don't really think they'll get.

_My god, you're adorable, _Phil thought, smiling back at Dan. "Perfect."

Dan pulled his fist down in the universal gesture for "Yessssss!" and went off to fiddle with the video player. Which was obvious and normal and necessary and everything- and then Dan had to go and _bend over_.

Honestly, this was hardly ever a problem for Phil anymore. He and Dan lived together. It certainly wasn't as if Phil had never looked at Dan's ass before. They'd seen each other naked, for Christ's sake. But it was Friday night and Phil had just gotten dumped and it was safe to say that Dan looked better in sweatpants than any human being should be physically capable of, and his hormones were in overdrive for some reason and just like that, Phil found himself staring.

_Come on, Phil, don't look. Stop that, you sillyface! Dan will eventually notice. Yeah, like he noticed the other hundred times. Okay, never mind. Just... don't look don't look don't look don't look don't look don't l- darn it._

Snapping back to the world that was not exclusive to his roomate's butt, Phil too pushed himself off the couch with both arms. He figured it best to busy himself, distract himself. "Hey, do we have any popcorn left? I'm starving."

Dan dramatically faux-gasped at Phil, hardly looking up from the video player. "Starving? You poor, deprived soul. Top shelf of the pantry. Back left."

Relieved to have something to do, Phil turned away and limbered over to the cupboard, clumsily retrieving the popcorn from its aforementioned position. He was just beginning to tear at the edges of the plastic overwrap when a rather distressed voice behind him half-shouted, "Fucking tits!".

Phil was so startled he just about dropped the popcorn. He wheeled around on the ball of his foot to see the cause of the distress. "Language, Daniel!" Phil scolded. "What's wrong?"

"Fucking tits," Dan said again, this time an annoyed mutter. "Sorry. The DVD player has decided that it hates me, and thus refuses to work for us." He exhaled visibly. "Mind if we just use your laptop?"

Phil thought about it for a moment. _Hmm, me and Dan alone in a dark room, obligated to sit very, very close together.  
_"No problem." He said nonchalantly.  
This could be.._. interesting._

**I'm really dragging it out, aren't I? Well, calm down, my lovelies. Phan shall joyously occur next chapter. And I know I say it a lot, but honestly, I really do appreciate feedback. It only takes a minute to leave a review, and it absolutely makes my day to hear from you. Seriously, it means a lot that you've put up with me this long.  
Till next time!  
- Madi**


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